Northrop Grumman files development plans for $80M Hawkeye plant in St. Augustine

[thelakelander]

by Karen Brune Mathis, Managing Editor

Northrop Grumman Corp. filed plans Thursday for its $80 million Hawkeye manufacturing plant expansion in St. Augustine that is expected to add 400 jobs to the aerospace and defense contractor's Northeast Florida workforce.
Northrop Grumman St. Augustine is an aircraft manufacturing and modifications facility whose current customer is the U.S. Navy. The E2-D Advanced Hawkeye is its anchor program with the Navy.

The company is the largest private industrial employer in St. Johns County and, as an aviation/aerospace manufacturing, is a star player in the region's targeted industry ranks.

full article: http://www.jaxdailyrecord.com/showstory.php?Story_id=540448

[John P]

but they have higer taxes than Jacksonville. I thought the city with the lowest taxes gets all the businesses.

[Stephen]

Its close to Jacksonville so maybe people from here will work there...Why didn't Jacksonville get this? is the business commumity moving to St.Johns County..So...Low taxes aren't the end all and be all for development.Will somebody give Mayor Brown and the City Council a clue ? I'm still glad I voted for Brown over Hogan
{{{ SHUDDER}}} but this is a bit much.

[CityLife]

The actual Northrop Grumman facility is in St. Johns County proper, outside of the St. Augustine city limits. SJC is the one that is granting the incentives and is the real player financially down there. SJC also recently gave Advanced Disposal a nice incentive package to relocate.

SJC now has quite a bit of the metro's middle class, upper middle class, and wealthy residents, and therefore can not only afford to have a great school system, but also make economic development deals like this (doesn't hurt that they also get impact fees for new development).  In fact, SJC is #2 in the state for per capita income, #1 in median household income, and #1 in median family income. A big focus of economic development efforts there is attracting employers and retail to match residential. I suspect we'll be seeing a lot more deals like this and Bass Pro Shops in the future.

[Tacachale]

Northrop is already in St. Johns, they're just expanding - and that hefty incentive factored in. Taxes likely had little if anything to do with it beyond what was written into the incentives package. If anything, for its population St. Johns is underserved by industry, and really all employers that aren't tied to tourism and residential real estate. Most of the county is a bedroom suburb for people who work in Jacksonville, so they're trying very hard to get some job growth. The ones with some foresight, anyway.